(Update: Election Scorecard - Senate Results, House Results, Governor Results)

The final round of polls on the generic ballot question show such wide divergence it is hard to draw definite conclusions. However, a look at a chart of the RCP Generic Average does seem to offer visual proof that there has been some movement to Republicans in the last week of the campaign. Furthermore, if you had to rate the track record and reputation of the polling firms that make up the seven polls in the current RCP Average, the three that show single digit Democratic leads (Pew, Gallup, ABC/WP), as well as 6 and 7 point moves toward the GOP, would rank in the top half of that group.

Additionally, we have evidence from respected Democratic and Republican pollsters that there has indeed been a move in the generic ballot toward Republicans. Stan Greenberg, James Carville and Bob Shrum's Democracy Corps' final poll indicated a 7-point move in the generic vote toward Republicans. I spoke with Ed Goeas of the Tarrance Group yesterday (the Republican half of the very respected and good Battleground Poll) who told me that his generic polling showed a tightening to Republicans leaving Democrats with a 6-point lead as opposed to double-digit leads they saw in October. Goeas also offered that their "likely voter modeling" tightened that 6-point deficit even further.

On balance, all of this supports the proposition that there is indeed a revival of Republican enthusiasm at the end of this campaign and some closing of the huge generic spreads that had been boosting assertions of a massive 35+ seat Democratic wave. This late in the game, however, it is hard to quantify just what kind of difference this makes in all of the individual Senate and House races. But the evidence was persuasive enough for us to down-tick our projected Democratic gains in the House and Senate.

On Saturday we had felt that the most likely Senate pickup for Democrats was five, today in RCP's final projection we think four seats is now the most likely outcome. In the House, the generic close should work to keep Republican losses muted; we've projected 19 seats with a range of 14 - 24. That range gives the GOP a small hope of hanging on to the House if everything breaks their way. If the Democrats win all of RCP's Toss Up races and Lean Democrat seats they could get up to 27 seats. (Jay Cost's analysis of the final Gallup generic poll also suggests a very similar 11 - 27 seat range.)